my life on the road, in the air, at sea, on the rocks, and everywhere in between

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I’m trying to sell my kayak. I bought it twelve years ago, and enjoyed paddling it maybe half a dozen times a year for the first few years. Gradually, motherhood overtook life, then an obsession with rock climbing, and the next thing you know, the kayak is basically just an annoying tripping hazard in my garage, blocking my expertly-organized storage racks, and piled upon with…more stuff. It’s essentially buried in the catacombs of the archaeological site that is the basement/garage under the house that contains the actual stuff of our daily life. It brings to mind the gold-rush era shipwrecks underneath the landfill on which San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood was built.

“Trying” to sell the kayak involved a listing on Nextdoor, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace, using pictures swiped from the manufacturer’s website, since I was too lazy to excavate the kayak to take real life photos. Besides, then I would be confronted with all the other stuff sitting between me and the boat, another strata of more-recently used things that don’t yet have a permanent place in the catacombs.

More importantly, I was too busy taking care of life maintenance prior to my most recent trip to Oregon. This trip was to help my mom clean out her garage, a part of the effort to clean out her house, pack it, and stage it for sale. She’s going to move closer to my brother and his family.

It’s important to understand that my mom has lived in this house for twenty years. And like me, Mom is a renaissance woman, a polymath, a volunteer, a crafter, a cook, a baker, a pet owner, a traveller, a mother, et cetera, et cetera. So mom has a lot of…stuff. See, one has to acquire the tools of the trade for all of these -ers one becomes. One does not simply *become* a quilter, a scrapbooker, a President of the Chamber of Commerce, a teacher, or a hostess. One must equip.

BUT HOLY HELL, THE STUFF.

I think we can stipulate that one’s accumulation of STUFF grows in proportion to the space in which one has to store it, with probably a 5% increase per annum for every year after 5 years living in one place, plus perhaps another 2% increase per child’s marriage and per grandchild. The compound stuff-interest of living a full life.

This is how a three-bedroom two-bath house with a two-car garage can get filled floor-to-ceiling with…stuff. Every gadget, and even duplicates of gadgets. And then, when one approaches 70 and wants to move, one must face this reality by enlisting one’s adult children to help move and lift the stuff, unbox, evaluate, donate, trash, and rebox. One must endure the “tough love” (aka judgement, aka harassment) from one’s conscripted children. The sighs, the callous disregard for how wonderful that throw pillow is, how ingenious that foot-heater for under the desk, and how distinctly different each of the four (or is it five? six?) floor cleaning machines is from the others.

My mother amazed me. Truly. I thought the process of going through all of these things would pain her, and would result in constant arguments between us. The occasional push-back occurred, but she calmly stood her ground on some things, and capitulated on others. It only happened a few times. Initially, I was impatient at her desire to tell me *what* each item was, and its provenance, rather than just telling me whether to donate it, trash it, or keep it. But considering how easily she was parting with most things, I eventually got over that. I grew to appreciate the fullness of her life, and her appreciation for the abundance she has been fortunate enough to enjoy.

Ultimately we made a huge dent, in only three half-ish days of work, and a few car and pickup-truck loads of donations. It was all we could physically and mentally manage each day, and we both went to sleep physically and psychically drained each night. Mom kept apologizing that we didn’t have time for “vacation” type visiting this trip, but I think this may have been our best bonding experience in a long time. No grandkids, no siblings or our partners, just me and her, excavating the memories of a life well-lived, clearing the way for a new phase in her life.

I’m inspired to get that kayak out of my house, and hopefully some other detritus too. To make more space for my kids’ sporting equipment, our climbing gear, and even just some…space. To be ready for whenever our next phase wants to start. Because holy hell, the stuff.

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My mom has been chairing the Pacific City Birding and Blues Festival for the last few years. I’ve been tempted to attend a number of times, but have never made the trip from San Francisco to her little town on the Oregon Coast for the weekend-long event. We convinced Mom to move this summer to Gig Harbor, Washington, where my brother and his family recently bought a house, so this will be her last year as chair of the festival, and there was a bit of pressure for me to finally attend.

So at Christmas time, knowing I had a casual interest in birdwatching (aka birding), mom gave me a book called Birding without Borders, by Noah Strycker, with a note inside announcing that Noah would be the keynote speaker at this year‘s festival, and that she hoped I would join them. Well, I read the book and loved it. Noah is a talented writer who managed to weave together a travelogue with an account of his quest – and achievement – of the biggest year on record.

A Big Year is when a birder tries to observe as many species as possible in one calendar year. Noah decided to do this on a global scale – a World Big Year – traveling to all seven continents with the goal of observing 5,000 birds in one year, which would be far and away the biggest year ever. Well, he succeeded, ultimately observing a grand total of 6,042 species, which amounts to over half of the bird species in the world.

Pretty much immediately upon finishing the book, I made arrangements to attend the festival. Noah didn’t know it yet, but I intended to befriend him. His trip sounded amazing, and as a traveler and writer, I admired his year-long commitment to his project. But even more than that, I was impressed with his ability to actually complete his book upon his return, publish it, go on a book tour and gain such a following, all considering he wasn’t even 30 years old.

I did my own big six month trip with the objective of writing a book when I was 23; that trip began 16 years ago this month. And I have still not written that book. I was certain with Noah’s influence, I would be once again inspired to settle down and write my book.

Thanks to a flight delay, my trip to Pacific City took way longer than it should have, but I arrived Thursday night while Mom was at a meeting in Tillamook. Her dog Molly and I went for a long walk in the evening as dusk was falling. An owl and some song birds called from the trees near her house. Two deer froze as we passed them at the top of the hill, with the setting sun and Haystack Rock as a backdrop. A feral bunny munched on the grass across the street from her house, unfazed by the approaching human and dog. Pacific City Is an echanting little beach town.

Oh Deer!

The festival opened on Friday, and I joined a field trip along the Three Capes Scenic Route. This was a day of learning, and meeting lots of people who knew a whole lot more than me about birds. My freshly acquired binoculars came in handy, but I soon realized that the high-powered ~$4,000 Swarovski spotting scopes that my guides Ram Papish (wildlife biologist and artist) and John Rakestraw (writer and bird guide) had were by far the better instrument for observing sea birds at a distance. On day one of the festival I observed fifty-four species.

Spotting sea birds at Cape Kiwanda

Spotting shore birds at Sitka Sedge

This guy’s camera was enormous, and all in it weighed 8 pounds

At Cape Lookout…looking out to the Three Arches

Looking down from Cape Mears

Great Blue Heron

Looking down from Cape Mears

A wildlife rescue center called Badger Run brought some of their animal ambassadors to educate us about raptors. I LOVE raptors. We got to see a Red-Tailed Hawk, a Swainson’s Hawk, a Rough-Legged Hawk, a Great Horned Owl, and a Turkey Vulture. I had no idea Turkey Vultures were so sweet and charming. And the owl was deilghtful; he had pair-bonded with his primary handler and was downright affectionate with her, nuzzling up and talking to her. But my favorite of the bunch was the very pretty little Swainson’s Hawk, who looked lilac and peachy to me, and was just a doll. Meeting those birds (and even the lovely but invasive European Starling) was a highlight for sure.

Rough-Legged Hawk

Turkey Vulture

Fluffed up European Starling

Great Horned Owl

Red Tailed Hawk

Sawinson’s Hawk

That night there was a hilarious presentation/concert by a comedian/musician named Tony Starlight. Full of birding puns, beautiful photos of birds he had observed near his floating home in Scappoose, and even audience sing alongs with parody songs he and friends had composed, everyone agreed that he was a great change of pace from the typical blues performances that have been presented at Birding & Blues for the previous 13 years.

Saturday I went on two more field trips, revisiting one of the areas I’d gone to on Friday (again with Ram), and visiting a new area on the other end of town (with Mark Elliott and Lorelle Sherman). A highlight was stopping at an area with half a dozen or so nesting boxes with tree swallows busily preparing their nests. On Friday I’d had fun taking pictures with my woefully inadequate lenses, but here up close to the swallows, I finally had enough magnification to get some good pictures of these pretty, playful birds.

White Crowned Sparrow

This guy rocked the full bino-bra, plus a bird guide in the back pocket

Camera + Scope = Meh (this is a Bufflehead)

Double-Crested Cormorant

Random: This lady grew up in the house next door to the house I live in currently

We saw so many Bald Eagles – mature and juvenile

Tree Swallow

Cackling Geese

Tree Swallows

Very hard to see American Goldfinch – a highlight for me!

Very hard to see Black Phoebe – a “lifer” for many folks on this tour

Western Gull

When we got back, it was time for Noah Strycker’s keynote speech. There was a little time before his talk for me to get my copy of Birding Without Borders autographed, then buy a copy of his older book The Thing With Feathers and get that signed too. He presented a slide show about his big year, and it was fun to hear him retell some of the stories from the book, and to see more of his photos of birds and his misadventures. He seemed like a happy and generous guy, energetic, and smart. It’s not surprising that he was able to get local birders from around the world to help him toward his goal. After the talk I remembered to get a selfie with him, and he asked if I’d be at the blues performance later. Even though I knew he’d be one of my field trip leaders on Sunday, I was excited by the idea of getting some one-on-one social time with him if the show might provide that opportunity.

Turns out it did. The performance by Karen Lovely and her band was way beyond what I expected – she has a killer voice, and I really dug her energy and the grooves of her songs. Plus she had an amazing guitarist, with some of the coolest looking guitars I’ve seen. One had laser-cut wood designs of gears and cogs on the front, and another was shiny metal with cool little cut-outs and pin-prick holes forming florets around thesound hole.

But sure enough, I spent a good deal of the evening hanging out with Noah. I think I played it pretty cool, not coming off as too much of a fangirl. I thought I’d be nervous trying to strike up a conversation with him, but it was really quite natural and comfortable. He was great to talk with – attentive and curious, asking questions about me, and just being present in the moment. It must be strange for him, going into social interactions with people who know so much about him already, when he knows nothing about them. He seems to have a handle on it though; it didn’t seem to faze him a bit. I told him I’d be on his field trip tomorrow, and told him I needed him to find me a Tufted Puffin. Then I moaned about it starting at 7:30am. He said, “I know! It should be 6:30!” Ugh. Birders.

Sunday morning came a bit too soon for my liking, with my wine buzz fading into regret, given the early start. But I made it to Cape Kiwanda just in time, and there was Noah, alongside Russ Namitz (Oregon Big Year title holder), and Wayne Hoffman (a superb birder, and an unexpected bonus guide). Ram even stopped by after a bit. Here we got to take a bit more time watching the sea birds, and I even caught a glimpse of a Tufted Puffin through the scope. I had missed seeing Atlantic Puffins both times I went to Iceland (not that I tried), and I kinda have a thing for them, so this was pretty cool!

We walked to the top of the dune on Cape Kiwanda, and watched for more sea birds. From there we spotted a Peregrine Falcon sitting still as a statue on another rock to the north. It looked enormous through the binoculars – a strange and confusing optical illusion, considering they are not very large birds. We also saw Stellar Sea Lions lounging on a buoy, and even a Gray Whale passing very close to shore! More of the charming, red-footed Pigeon Guillemots, more of the Common Loons, more Double-Crested Cormorants, more, more, more.

The “Salty Seabirds” field trip had us back at Cape Kiwanda

Looking back on Pacific City from the top of the Cape

Can you see that Bald Eagle up on the knob?

Haystack Rock and Cape Kiwanda are both popular with the birds

Noah and Ram

Peregrine Falcon – I couldn’t stop looking through my binoculars at him

It was time to descend the dune and head to our next field trips. I got chatting about Iceland with another woman who was preparing for a trip there, and when we were almost back to the parking lot, another participant pointed out that I no longer had my backpack. Oops. Back up the dune I went, and by the time I got back to my car, everyone was gone. I fueled up with coffee and a citrus & marionberry scone at Stimulus Coffee, then headed back to Sitka Sedge State Natural Area for my final field trip.

Sitka Sedge is so new they haven’t even finished building the parking lot yet. After parking in a dirt area across the road, as I crossed I was nearly run over by Russ and Noah. (Guess I had it coming – I’d nearly run over Russ in the parking lot the day before.) They’d decided to come to Sitka Sedge too, in search of some bird or other for Noah’s Tillamook County list. After catching up with my group, I realized I was craving actual movement and solitude; these groups move slowly, sharing sightings and scopes, learning how to identify birds, and learning about their behaviors and migration patterns. After three days of that, I just wanted to walk through the woods and listen. So off I went, wondering how far the trail went, and how long it would take me to get to the ocean.

Great Egrets

Along the way I spotted a few birds I kinda sorta thought I could identify (Marsh Wren, I’m lookin’ at you), and one bird sang tauntingly to me through the woods – a long and complicated song – but never revealed himself. Eventually I came upon Russ and Noah, who had stricken off ahead; they welcomed me to join them, and before long we heard the song again and they knew it by ear: the Pacific Wren. Then the bird flew into sight, easy as pie. Jerk.

Noah and Russ invited me to drive with them for a couple of hours to hit up some more hot spots in search of Noah’s bird. Everywhere we stopped, we’d walk really fast along a trail while they’d name birds they heard singing and calling all around us. I barely saw any birds at all, but when we’d get back in the truck, Russ would hand Noah his phone and they’d start rattling off a list of species they had observed, checking them off in eBird (an app by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology used to report bird sightings). I had been using eBird all weekend for my own checklists, but never trusted my brain to complete the checklists after the fact. I logged everything in the moment. Mental note: get better at taking mental notes.

Not sad we went on those speed-hikes. JUST. LOOK. AT. THIS. VIEW.

We went back to all of the places I’d gone on my Friday Three Capes field trip, but we never did find Noah’s bird. Back to Pacific City we went, and it was time for beer. Russ had an appointment to keep, but Noah and I met at the Pelican Pub and had a beer and some food, and talked on and on for another two hours. So yeah, now we’re basically best friends, just as I had predicted. 😉

Me and a couple of world class birders, NBD

Bird nerds are interesting people. They like optics: cameras, binoculars, spotting scopes. They like travel: racing around their city, county, state, country, continent, and planet to see more and more species of birds. They like lists, books, and records: gotta find those birds, know what you’re looking at, and tell everyone else so they can find them too. They like to talk. Boy, do they like to talk. Guess who else likes to talk? This girl! I’m not sure I love the racing-around-just-to-check-a-box part of birding, but I definitely like the experience of being present while out in nature, listening, looking, and observing. And so, of course, I filled my garden with bird feeders the day I got home, and now I’m planting flowers to bring more birds and bugs around. I’m upgrading my binoculars, and taking pictures of birds from my desk. I’m…writing about birding. Thanks, Mom.

The drive from Idyllwild to Joshua Tree is a little hairy at first, especially at night. Highway 243 winds around the side of Mt. San Jacinto, and deposits you on I-10, when the driving gets pretty dull. Head east to highway 62, drive north a little ways, and then you’re there.

Arriving in the town of Joshua Tree after dark, without a campsite booked, is a mild adventure. With our van, we’re able to camp pretty much anywhere we want outside the park, provided we don’t trespass or bug anyone. We tried to go to “the pit,” a big open patch of ground in town where people apparently just free camp; but there was a deep rut crossing the road that we just didn’t want to try our luck driving over. Onward we went, and eventually pulled off on a dirt track, found a turnout that looked like a popular spot to camp, and called it home for the night.

Kitties in the desert!

The cats had fun exploring our little patch of desert come morning. As for us, we took our sweet-ass time getting stuff done, then headed to town to the local gear shop Nomad Ventures (“Nomads”) to track down one of Glenn’s local contacts and see what was up. Plans were made to meet up the next afternoon, and Glenn and I headed into the park. We climbed for a bit at Echo Cove, South Side. This mostly consisted of me horsing around on topropes Glenn set over not-really-actual routes.

Call me crazy, but I kinda like just working on moves, hang-dogging on sport routes I have no business on, and holding my back flags and heel hooks half a second longer than I need to, just because I feel cool doing them. I told Glenn, “I think I actually like getting shut down on routes that are too hard for me more than I like sending routes that I can do.” It’s true – but only in vertical and overhung sport climbing. On slab I can hang there all day and just get more and more panicked! But give me a toprope and something a full number grade beyond my max and I’ll mess around until I’m pumped and my belayer is fed up. And anyway, if it’s shady, our crag kitties can hang out with us all day while we play!

Glenn picking out routes

Gorgeous spring weather in the desert

That’s me belaying – can you spot the kitties?

Glenn contemplating where to build our toprope anchor for maximum fun

At this spot, Eevee just hid under the bushes almost the entire time. Ghost roamed around, hopping boulders, and scrambling up and down the slabs. He even found a little cave riddled with rodent poop, but thankfully he was at the end of his leash, so he couldn’t get in there to investigate.

Eevee crouched and hiding

Ghost posing for photos by the wall

When Glenn was done cleaning our anchors and heading back to the van, he noticed some other climbers who’d built a toprope anchor which was suspect (or, if you prefer, Jive-Ass, or even Unbelayvable). I’m not sure if it was exactly the American Death Triangle (yes, this anchor is so infamous it has its own Wikipedia page), but whatever it was, Glenn did a service by hollering down to the climbers below and helping them rectify their dangerous setup.

“Hey…can I make some adjustments to this anchor for you?”

I read on Campendium about some BLM land north of the park where we could boondock, so we headed up there for the night. It’s only about 13 minutes from the West Entrance Station, and about 10 minutes from the Indian Cove Ranger Station – totally reasonable. It was a boondocking wonderland! Every manner of camper was out there, from car + tent folks to vans, duallies + fifth wheels to Class A motorhomes. There were plenty of pull-outs to get basically your own “campsite,” and we found one quickly and got the most perfectly level we have ever been. The bubble level was a perfect bullseye. Unprecedented! Thank you, desert!

Sunset at our boondocking site at “Joshua Tree North” 😍

Friday morning was spent writing, editing photos, and doing other assorted work and life-maintenance. Otherwise put, we took our sweet-ass time once again. Oh, fun animal sighting: a coyote hunting Eevee-style (pounce!) on our way to the park.

Coyote!

We were supposed to meet folks at Trashcan Rock at 2:30, and we got there a little early, but they never did turn up. So we just took the kitties over to the Real Hidden Valley, to the Turtle Rock – East Face area. I had a lot more fun climbing here than I expected. It was easy climbing, to be sure, and I still got stumped here and there, but I didn’t get frustrated or panic. I’ll call that a win!

Getting ready to climb at Turtle Rock

Looking back over the Hidden Valley & Intersection Rock area

After climbing, we used the remaining daylight so I could practice jumaring (aka jugging). I had learned the RAD (Rapid Ascent and Descent) method in the photo clinic we took at Red Rock Rendezvous. But Glenn wanted to teach me the Yosemite Method of jumaring, which is how most climbers ascend fixed lines on big walls that are not overhung.

It’s not uncommon that I’m a difficult student when Glenn is teaching me. He is eternally patient and forgiving of my grumpy backtalk when I can’t make something work no matter how many different ways he explains it. Eventually I got the hang of it though, and I did manage to jug up the whole line. Once I got the rhythm, and once I was on the right terrain, it was pretty easy, and yeah, kinda satisfying – in a work sorta way.

Little rock hoppers, pre-mice

By now it was getting dark, and suddenly mice came crawling out from every hidey-hole in the desert and rocks. The cats went right into hunting mode. I was worried they were going to short-rope themselves jumping off a boulder to chase a mouse, but they managed to stay safe. I packed them up and got them back to the van in a hurry, and Glenn broke down our fixed line and walked out in the dark.

We had visions of Pie For the People dancing through our heads, but the line was out the door; there was an hour wait at the Joshua Tree Saloon, and we didn’t think we’d get our orders in before they closed the kitchen. So, we crossed the great cultural divide between Joshua Tree (dirtbag climbers) and Twentynine Palms (Marines) to eat at Rocky’s New York Style Pizza, which I knew from when I brought the boys there on New Year’s Eve 2016/17. I kinda love this place. Tasty, basic thin crust pizzas, a good family vibe, and really really nice staff.

Another night at BLM boondock city, and another morning chillin with the kitties. We had to wait for Glenn’s friend Rand to get to town so we could get our long-lost power cord and surge protector back from him; Glenn had left them at Rand’s place on a prior trip. Anyone with an RV knows how expensive those things are! So while we waited for Rand, we went over to Rattlesnake Canyon near Indian Cove to do some scrambling around before we had to drive for 8+ hours.

Some of the rocks near the Rattlesnake Canyon picnic area

Balanced rock – I got to crawl through that gap

Looking back toward Indian Cove

Unfortunately, Rand got held up in traffic, so he didn’t arrive until around 2:30. We visited for a few minutes, then hit the road for the long drive home.

The boys were with their dad in Hawaii this spring break, so the fella and I got to go off on our own for the week. We started off by driving the van down to my godmother’s house in Vista, CA, in north San Diego County, just inland from Carlsbad and Oceanside.

Kitties so psyched to get back on the road

For those unfamiliar with Vista, I can tell you – it is a wonderland. The climate there is perfect and magical, and the resulting ecosystem is an anomaly. Plants grow there that won’t grow outside of the tropics. Animals live there that have no business being in Southern California. People are friendly and generous. The air is freshened by sea breezes, and the Mexican food is legit.

My godmother’s house is one of my favorite places anywhere. Built in 1947, it sits on around two acres of what was once a 400-plus acre historical citrus and avocado orchard, and boasts many varieties of fruit trees and tropical flowers. At Christmastime, there is a veritable wall of poinsettias as tall as the house. When we were there, a hummingbird nest was seemingly floating in the stems of the bougainvillea by the front porch, with two tiny chicks in it. We even spotted a pair of mountain bluebirds who made a nest in an abandoned woodpecker cavity – those birds are rare in the area, only nesting there thanks to that Vista magic. My godmother, whom I generally refer to in print as “Beautiful Godmother” (we’ll call her BG for short), installed a sandy beach on the hillside facing west, so she can watch the sunset from her own beach. BG recently put a hot tub in one corner of the beach. This might be what heaven is like.

The scent of orange blossoms was everywhere, and some trees were already laden with mandarins.

Two teensy baby hummingbirds waiting for mama

BG’s brother and his wife were visiting, so we got to see them briefly on the night we arrived. The next day we took the cats to the beach. Bringing them out on their leashes is always amusing – the ways people react! But they were actually pretty messed up from the long drive, and the sounds of the waves and a nearby bulldozer pushing sand around had them on edge. So we didn’t stay long. We also got to visit with some friends the second night. The check engine light came on in the van that day, and the transmission had a little hiccup, so we were a bit concerned; but, Glenn had it checked out in the morning and the experts didn’t seem concerned. Meh, Mercedes. Finally, before departing, we walked to the lot for sale behind BG’s magical property. If I could move tomorrow – and not bother worrying about school districts – I would buy that land and go park my van on it until I could build something. I’d plant a garden on the hillside first, and build a house eventually, whenever it started to feel necessary. Ah, to have my own slice of heaven!

Susan, Scott, Sheryl (BG), and me

Kitties on the beach in Oceanside

Lot 6 – my fantasy spot!

Next stop was to be Joshua Tree, but first we made a little detour to Idyllwild, home to Suicide Rock and Tahquitz peak, an historic climbing location. We hit up Suicide Rock, but since we didn’t get there until close to 4:00pm, we only had time for one climb before the light started to fade and we had to hike back to the van.

At the top of P1 of Surprise – I’m only smiling because I was laughing at the grumpy face I used when Glenn first started to take the photo.

I didn’t mind though, because the slick granite slab terrified me. I struggled up the one easy pitch, willing myself to finish even though I really really really disliked it. I’m trying to work on my mental game. I want to change my self talk from “I hate this” to “This is fun,” and “I can’t figure this out” to “Whatever, who cares if I fall?” This is something I took two separate clinics on at Red Rock Rendezvous a couple of weeks ago, but it definitely takes practice and discipline. I did manage to finish the pitch, but it was not very impressive. The route was called Surprise, on the Weeping Wall. So named because the first-ascensionists were surprised that the seemingly-blank face went at such a moderate grade (5.8). Pitch 1 is a so-called 5.0. Heh. I call sandbagging on that, you old-school so-and-sos.

Our climb in the foreground, Tahquitz Peak in the background

Looks pretty mellow from the side, eh? Not so much when you’re on it. At least, not if you’re me.

The hike back down afforded beautiful views of Tahquitz Peak lit up pink by the sunset. And driving out from Idyllwild toward Joshua Tree, we skirted the mountainside and saw an amazing (likely smog-induced) sunset over Temecula. Totally worth the slab scare.

Our plan was to spend a week in Yellowstone with my brother and his family, visit a family friend in Bozeman, head up to Glacier National Park, then onward to Spokane and points west. Sometime during our stay in Yellowstone, the van started misbehaving. It started…not starting. It wouldn’t even crank. Just…nothing. After a few attempts, it would crank and turn over like normal. So it was an intermittent problem, but we weren’t sure how long it might be until it would become a *not* intermittent problem.

We left Yellowstone and drove to Bozeman. We decided to stay a couple of nights in Bozeman, and the matter worsened. Instead of taking three tries to start, it now took eight or ten tries. We worried about getting to remote Glacier National Park – in the far northwest corner of Montana – and ending up completely stranded. Getting a tow from there would not be easy and would not be cheap.

Here’s the issue: our van is a Mercedes Sprinter. Almost nobody will work on these vans. Those who will are usually Mercedes dealership service departments. They charge a fortune – because they can – and they often have long waits for appointments. We started calling around to see if we could get it worked on. Bozeman was a no-go. Billings had a dealer, but they had a 2-week wait for an appointment. Missoula also had a dealer, but a 3-week wait. The next closest dealer was in Spokane, and we weren’t supposed to be in Spokane for another week. But they offered to see us the next day. Decision time.

Glacier National Park was one of the tentpoles around which this trip was conceived. I’d wanted to go there for years, but it’s so remote, it seemed to only make sense to drive there if we were already nearby. Visiting Yellowstone put us within the acceptable range. This trip was the perfect opportunity to get there. So, being the stubborn woman I am, I suggested we roll the dice and go to Glacier anyway, figuring we just wouldn’t turn off the van until we got there. And if it got worse, we’d cut our time there short and high-tail it to Spokane. So, we made the 5-hour drive to Glacier anyway, and sure enough, it got worse. We spent one night, then drove the iconic Going-to-the-Sky Road from east to west through the park, and onward directly to Spokane. The boys still managed to complete the park’s Junior Ranger program, so at least I didn’t feel guilty about them missing out on that. But overall, Glacier got shafted. Scrapped. Forfeited. I was bummed.

Junior Rangers

Thankfully, Glenn’s childhood friend Zac lives in Spokane, and he offered to let us use his house while we were in town. This is important, because when you live in a van and your van needs to go into the shop…you’re homeless. So Glenn, the boys, the cats, and I moved into Zac’s house, even though Zac and Maggie were in Hawaii at the time. Their dog Louise was at a kennel, but their cats Taco and Kiba were home and had a house sitter coming daily to take care of them. So Ghost and Eevee got to meet Taco and Kiba (whom we called Sheba because that’s what we thought the house sitter said her name was). Taco was a real dick, and took off one night; we never saw him again the whole time we were there.

Glenn snuggling with Kiba-Sheba

The van went into the shop the morning after we arrived, but the Saturday skeleton crew couldn’t sort out just what was wrong with it. The diagnostic computer was spitting out conflicting error codes, so they decided it would have to wait until Monday for the shop foreman to weigh in on the issue. So we waited…

As our current not-good luck would have it, Spokane was being smothered by smoke at this time, with fires burning all around it in three states. It was also being stifled by high summer temperatures around 95 degrees every day. During our time there, we were told that the air quality in Spokane was the fourth worst in the world, worse even than China. The advisory was to stay indoors. So we had some of the laziest days we’ve had all summer, sitting inside on our electronic devices, napping, reading, and generally lazing about. We lost all motivation and didn’t even want to go grocery shopping or cook, or even go out to eat. We ordered meals through GrubHub and UberEats, and relished the fact that we had ice cubes to put in our cocktails. We don’t have a freezer in our van, so ice is a true luxury. We could also watch Game of Thrones on a real TV, the actual time it aired. Magic! One day I took the boys out to a community pool with a waterslide and lazy river, and then we all went out to see Dispicable Me 3 in the filtered, air conditioned air. But that was about it.

Fun at the Southside Family Aquatic Facility

Monday came around and the boss man showed up. There was corrosion in the fuse relay (whatever that is) housed to the left of the under-the-steering-column area. They’d need to replace that before they could run further diagnostics to see if anything else was wrong. That repair would cost $750, and the part *might* arrive the next day. My expensive third-party warranty on the van won’t cover anything caused by corrosion (yay!), so we’d have to pay for it ourselves. Tuesday rolled around and they fixed the fuse relay, then determined that there was also corrosion on the DEF injector nozzle, and also a problem with the upstream and downstream nox sensors. My warranty wouldn’t cover any of it, but Mercedes was covering that last item through some extended warranty they had. No idea why, but it saved be a ton of dough. All in, the repairs cost $1500 in parts and labor. And my stupid warranty proved useless yet again.

Checking out the falls in downtown Spokane with Zac on a smoky evening

Zac and Maggie returned, the boys went home with their dad, and we waited for the van to be finished. We had a great visit with Zac and Maggie, and definitely enjoyed the creature comforts of being in a house. But man, the wind sure came out of our sails. Our plan had been to spend one night in Spokane, then drive to Squamish, British Columbia, for a week of rock climbing. Squamish was another tentpole around which this trip was conceived. Too remote to just casually drive there from home, it would probably only happen if we bundled it with this trip, or flew there. After a reality check that it would still take 8 hours of driving to get from Spokane to Squamish, and another 8 hours to get from Squamish to our next destination, we decided that 16 hours of driving might not be worth the ever-dwindling number of days we’d be able to enjoy in Squamish. Furthermore, I’d recently developed a weird nerve pain in both my forearms and hands, so climbing felt beyond me anymore. We decided to scrap our plans for Squamish.

That made two tentpoles scrapped. Now, like any good seat-of-the-pants travelers, we made lemonade from all these lemons: we got to spend some quality time with Zac and Maggie, and ended up spending the remainder of our meant-to-be-in-Squamish days having a great time visiting friends and family in Seattle, and even got to see my current favorite band Blind Pilot in concert. Considering I couldn’t really climb, it was a mighty good consolation prize. And to be honest, I’m a little road weary at this point anyway. But damn, those were gonna be epic tentpoles!!! I was not so naive to think that we could travel for 14 weeks without mechanical trouble, but it was certainly unfortunate that it happened while in Wyoming/Montana, where finding help with our Mercedes was nigh impossible. This is another inherent flaw in our choice of van. Taking it to the wild places we want to go carries a risk of being sidelined to a painful degree. Sigh.

College friend Jon

Cousin Ravi and his son

High school friend Ashley

Blind Pilot playing at Woodland Park Zoo

Insert your own uplifting “c’est la vie” kind of concluding thought here. I’ll just leave it at this: that was a bummer, but it’s all good, and let’s carry on. Three weeks to go.

Back home, we were always amused when Eevee and Ghost would hunt bugs that got into the house. We never imagined what a huntress Eevee would become. So far she has captured rodents in three states that we know of, and for all we know she’s a wanted kitty. She’s captured a young chipmunk, and killed a baby vole (which we originally misidentified as a gopher) two full grown voles, and a shrew.

Kill #1, a baby vole at Chautauqua Park in Boulder, CO

Shrew, Gallatin River, Montana

Adult vole #1, Bozeman, Montana

I woke up to discover she’d gotten another vole, then went right on hunting for more

Everywhere we go, people stop and talk to us about our cats, telling us how cute they are, and marveling that our cats will tolerate being in a harness, on a leash, and/or on a tether at our campsite. I’ve started telling them about Eevee’s hunting. And in some cases, they get to witness it, or get to see this video:

And then there’s the one that got away.

Lucky little chipmunk in Vedauwoo, Wyoming

I chased after Eevee when she got this chipmunk by the head, because I’m kinda demented and wanted a picture of her with the critter in her mouth, and she eventually put him down. I went to take his picture, then turned to video the next hunt. The little bugger ran right across my foot! I guess he got lucky!

Note that Ghost has basically none of these instincts. He mostly just looks at the poor victims, and occasionally pounces on them if they seem to magically reanimate. But at least we have one mouser in the family!

Ghost followed this not-dead-yet vole under the van, then didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Intermission. It’s been eight weeks since we left home – two adults, two children, and two cats. We still have six more weeks to go!

Yesterday I flew from West Yellowstone to San Francisco to pick the kids up from their dad to bring them back out on the road for more adventures. So today we will fly back to Yellowstone and keep on rolling. Since we sublet our house for the summer, I stayed over last night at a good friend’s house, and some other friends stopped by in the evening. So I had four people asking me questions about our trip, and me all alone (Glenn, help!) to try to answer them. I surely rambled a lot and didn’t make much sense, but they were nice to me anyway.

One thing I’m learning is that LOTS of people want to do what we’re doing. “Tell me all about what it’s like – it’s a dream of ours!” I try… But it’s not all that easy to explain what it’s like. It’s pretty much what you’d imagine it’s like: four people and two cats in a van can be cramped, cat hair ends up everywhere all the time, and there’s never enough places to put everybody’s shoes.

Even the cats are piled on top of each other

The biggest difference for me in daily life has been developing the essential routine of stowing. Stowing is not cleaning or tidying or organizing. It’s usually all of those things, but it’s also putting items away securely. One simply cannot make “piles” in a van. Everything has to get stowed. Here’s all of the stowing that happens between waking up and driving somewhere:

Put bed in upright/couch position

Strip sheet from bed

Stuff 2 blankets into their stuff sacks

Stow sheet, 2 stuff sacks, and 2 pillows in cabinet above bed/couch

Remove 2 cushions from being part of the bed

Remove table top from being part of the bed, fetch table leg, erect table

[make coffee, cook/eat breakfast, change clothes, brush teeth, etc.]

Empty coffee maker, stow in the lowest cabinet, somehow squeezing it between the pots and the Tupperware

Wash all the dishes, dry them, put them away (sometimes this can wait, if everything can fit securely inside the sink, and if we’re not going to be on any bumpy roads that would make it all rattle around a ton)

Fold pajamas and put them away (you can’t just leave them out because you’ll step on them in the tiny hallway, or the cats will lay on them and get hair all over them, or something will spill on them; and they usually have to be folded because otherwise they simply won’t fit in the place they belong)

Stow table leg and table top

Move fruit basket from counter to bench, where it (usually) won’t slide right off onto the floor (we used to keep it in the microwave, but then we’d forget about eating the fruit and it would get overripe)

Stow all books, electronics, games, EVERYTHING

Arrange our rechargeable fan just-so on the back cushion that it can still recharge and blow, but hopefully won’t crash onto the floor

…and that’s when it’s just me and Glenn. With the boys’ beds in the mix, there’s even more.

Stowing is not to be confused with STASHING. Before we started our trip, I knew we’d need more storage/stowage than what we had. So I ordered us some stretchy mesh pockets to mount on the wall – I call them stash pockets.

The stash pockets – the bottom two are used for shoes, and the very bottom one was also a perfect place to secure wine bottles!

The beautiful drawers Glenn built me for my “closet”

The idea is that some items should be readily accessible, and that storing them inside a cabinet or box is impractical because they’ll just get buried in there and you’ll never be able to find them when you need them. So instead, they need “stash spots.” These can be parts of the car like a cubby, cup holder, or glove compartment; or, they can be add-on stash pockets. But the idea only works if you use the same stash spot for the same item all the time. Otherwise you can’t remember where you put the thing the last time, and it might as well just be bopping around in Granny’s junk drawer for all the luck you’re going to have locating it.

Some examples of stashes: by the bed, which is also under the TV, and next to the charging ports, we have a stash pocket which holds the remote controls, charging cables, and Chapstik. The Chapstik is the stash. In the upper stash pocket by the sliding door, we keep cat treats, the cats’ leashes, walkie talkies, and cameras. Honestly, everything in there is a stash, but the thing I grab most often from there is the good camera. The keys to the cargo box have a stash spot that we both use religiously, which is kind of a miracle. The trouble comes when you get lazy and don’t re-stash your stash after using it. Or worse, if you stash it somewhere else. This bad habit of mine long ago earned me the taunt “Stasher!” Now if some always-easy-to-find thing goes missing, I get called a stasher and get shamed for stashing it somewhere random. Yes, stowing/stashing/organizing is so important in our lives that it was the genesis of a new kind of domestic teasing.

By now someone’s thinking, “Nobody cares about that boring stuff! What about traveling all the time?!” Well, it’s awesome. And taxing. It can be a lot of planning – doesn’t always need to be, but can be. And a lot of driving. And we eat “in” a lot more on the road than we do at home in the city, so there’s a lot of shopping, cooking, and dishwashing to do. But yeah, getting to see cool different places all the time is rad. Duh!

So far we’ve been to five states and ten national parks. We’ve climbed in more different spots than I can accurately count without doing a lengthy look back at our records. Wildflowers blooming all over the Rockies, elk and mule deer munching grasses, raptors screeching to defend their nesting area, chipmunks and squirrels chirping out an alarm when the cats come outside to play, marble-size hail bouncing off the van and the ground, the smoke-tinged horizon glowing peach and hibiscus at sunset, rivers bending gently through a grass valley or raging ferociously through a rocky gorge, and craggy peaks high above, daring us to climb them; these are the sights and sounds of our summer so far. And I can’t wait to get back to them.